Powdered food drink products are used world wide, for example as a bedtime drink and/or as a nutritive drink, one of the most famous being the malted food drink product sold under the trade mark Horlicks. Such products are characterised by a smooth mouth feel with body and are ideally of high solubility in water or milk added by the consumer. The detailed processes by which Horlicks and related food drinks are made have been trade secrets for many years but it is known that they are prepared from cereals whose starch is completely solubilised by malt enzymes derived from sprouted barley. The process further involves blending the solubilised product with milk products, sugar and other ingredients, cooking and drying.
Known processes for preparing powdered food drink products are not only complex, but suffer from the disadvantage that they are expensive since a great deal of water is used and this must be removed by heating in order to produce the powdered product.